


the water will be paralysed (by the courage you contain)

by morifiinwe



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Elwing is a good mother, F/M, Half-maiar, Prophetic Visions, The Havens of Sirion, Third Kinslaying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 12:37:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19334659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morifiinwe/pseuds/morifiinwe
Summary: Someday you will understand what you truly inherited





	the water will be paralysed (by the courage you contain)

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song ‘Watermark’ by Sleeping At Last  
> beta read by the lovely elvntari (whose username is now recognised by my autocorrect)

The twins were babies when they first began to show signs. As far as Elwing was concerned, that was neither late nor early. As far as Eärendil was concerned, it was possibly the oddest thing that had ever happened. Eärendil, of course, was not descended from Melian, or indeed any of the Maiar, so Elwing wasn’t exactly expecting him to be anything but surprised. It wasn’t as if Elwing didn’t find it disconcerting, but she, like her father and her  brothers and her grandmother, had done the same as a baby. You can’t tell babies off for trying their best to draw attention, even if they did manage to summon everyone within hearing range.

They were only hungry, and only little. They’d learn as they got older.

Eärendil, however, looked rather like he wanted to learn immediately. He was holding a sleeping Elrond in his arms, eyes flicking between him and Elwing, as though one or other of their children would suddenly raise a flood or grow horns or something equally improbable. They weren’t inclined to do anything of the sort, she didn’t think. They didn’t want horns or floods, just apparently the Silmaril as a teething toy.

Elwing removed Nauglamír from Elros’s grasp for the third time that day.

Eärendil looked up from Elrond, who had turned to lean further into his father’s shirt. She could see him trying to formulate a question that was both concise and broad. He struggled for a moment longer, watching Elros reach again for the Silmaril, opened his mouth, closed it again, and then finally spoke.

“Elwing, what on earth?”

“They’re just using all the skills they have at their disposal.”

“That’s not a normal baby skill.”

Elwing laughed quietly, careful not to disturb Elrond or Elros, who was falling asleep in her lap.

“It is normal for Melian’s children.”

“I’ve never seen you do anything like  _ that _ .”

“You’ve barely seen me do anything. I could do what they did if I wanted to. Besides, they haven’t been taught how to control it yet. They won’t be doing it forever.”

Careful to not wake her sleeping son, Elwing stood and moved towards the nursery. She stopped by the chair that Eärendil was sat in, bending down to press a kiss against his cheek.

“You’re going to have to get used to it in the meantime.”

“See, that’s what I’m worried about,” he responded as he followed her into the next room, Elrond secure in his arms. There was laughter in his voice.

“Well I turned out completely normal, didn’t I?” Elwing reminded him, once the twins were laid down, and they had returned to their room.

“Completely?”

Gasping in mock affront, Elwing aimed a shove at him. Eärendil stumbled obligingly, then scooped her up in his arms and swung her around, making her shriek in mixed surprise and joy. There was a noise from the other room, and they stilled, waiting with baited breath for the cry of one of the twins. No such cry came.

“Oh, thank Eru.”

“Yes, it’s far too late for them to be calling everyone into our house.”

Elwing poked him in the ribs.

“Ow! Don’t you love me?”

“Don’t you love our sons?”

Eärendil placed a kiss gently against her lips.

“You know I love all of you.”

* * * * *

The woman at the shore line looked as young as Elwing and as old as the sea itself. She was, in fact, older even than that, older than the whole world. Only her eyes showed it truly, dark and fathomless as the ocean. Elwing remembered a time when her eyes had looked like that. It had been years since she had started to disguise them, but she ceased to now, shaking her head as she did so. Many of her people found it hard to look at eyes like hers, but Uinen had always met her gaze.

She rose from where she had been perched on a rock, and turned to greet Elwing. Her hair had been spread out on the rocks like seaweed, but it followed her up, hanging past her thighs. Elwing’s hair was pulled back from her face, but already some of the curls had escaped. Ink black, her mother had once described her hair, the same as Lúthien’s. Lúthien’s, and Uinen’s too. Perhaps it was just a trait of the Maiar.

“Little sister, it is so good to see you again,” Uinen’s voice was as cool and calm as the glass-like sea behind her, “You have such beautiful children.”

She smiled down at Elrond and Elros, who had toddled after Elwing. They were both far more confident walking on sand than either of their parents had been when they had first arrived at Sirion, older then than the twins were now.

“Thank you Uinen.”

Elwing was the only person at the Havens who called Uinen merely by her name. Even Eärendil called her ‘The Lady’ with a look towards the sea, or ‘Lady Uinen’ if he had to be specific. To everyone else, she was the Maia of the Deep, someone to be feared and respected in equal measure. To Elwing, she was the closest thing to an older sibling that she’d had since she was three.

“So they’ve been getting stronger?”

“Yes. I know they’re young, but our situation is delicate enough as it is. I don’t need them causing any more trouble than regular toddlers do.”

Uinen nodded understandingly, crouching down to look the twins in the eyes. They didn’t shy away from her gaze, just met it with all the natural curiosity of children. Evidently, she found what she was looking for, and so did the boys. All three smiled at her.

“Would you like to find Ossë, or shall I?”

Elwing looked over to her sons.

“Boys,” she asked them, “would you be alright if I left you with Aunt Uinen for a little bit? I won’t be gone long.”

Elros nodded up at her, already grabbing at Uinen’s blue-green skirt. Elrond had found a clam.

“Don’t let them drown.”

“It’s character building!”

Elwing laughed, nearly waist deep in water. Her feet sought the shelf carefully, and when she found it, she pushed herself off, caring little for her wet clothes. Eärendil was the mariner out of the two of them, but Elwing was sister to the sea, and in the blue beneath she was free.

It was never very hard to find Ossë. He was usually where the sea was the most turbulent, and if he wasn’t causing trouble, he was looking for people to start it with. Sometimes, Elwing wondered if Ulmo told him when she was looking for him. It wasn’t very long before they were face to face. The currents stirred and Elwing found she was rising to the surface.

Ossë, like Uinen, had ink-black hair and strange eyes. His were like the sea in a storm, dark grey and almost angry. His smile quite destroyed the effect. It was disarmingly affectionate, so much so that she almost forgot the danger that Ossë always posed. The sea was perilous, whether it meant it or not. Only when he was on land was he safe, for then the sea couldn’t rile up around him. For now, though, he was happy, playful even. Elwing splashed water into his face, and he laughed loudly.

“Little sister!”

“Hello Ossë.”

“Right, let me guess. Uinen sent you?”

Elwing nodded.

“It’s about your boys and I’m late?”

“Yes, that’s about right”

Ossë tipped his head back, squinting up at the sun, waved at her, and called out some question about the date. Arien’s reply was to quiet for Elwing to make out, but Ossë gave his thanks, and looked apologetically over at Elwing.

“Definitely late. Very sorry about that. We should get back to the shore. I don’t think I’ve met your sons properly.”

Back at shore, Elros had been distracted from Uinen by Elrond’s clam hunt. They had at least twelve between the pair of them, all sat in a little puddle of water that Uinen had called up for them. As Elwing rose up out of the sea, they ran to hug her, damp as she was. Uinen rose from her rock by the clam pool to greet Ossë, teasing sternness written all over her face. He had the decency to look at least a little abashed.

They stood together at the sea’s edge for a while, talking quietly in the language of the sea and the sky and the earth. Elwing understood some parts of it, parts that were the easiest to recognise. River sounds, shore sounds, those were the language she spoke. Ossë and Uinen often spoke with the sounds from far beneath the surface of the sea, places Elwing had never visited. They were beautiful sounds, but the meaning was utterly lost on her.

Abruptly, Ossë switched to Sindarin.

“ _ Aunt _ Uinen? Does that make me Uncle Ossë?”

“Boys, this is your Uncle Ossë.”

_ * * * * * _

Elwing did not know if she had Melian’s foresight or not. Elrond had always been a very perceptive child, but that could just as easily be from Idril. More likely, in fact, that Idril, his grandmother, would pass it on, than Melian, his great-great-grandmother. Elwing herself had never been very powerful, beyond the simplest of conjurings. It was unlikely that she had any great remnant of Melian, or even Lúthien’s, power, but sometimes, she could swear that she had known something was coming.

Calling on Ossë and Uinen to help her teach Elrond and Elros had been one such instinctive decision. She’d felt the need to explain the choice endlessly, because she could not explain it to herself. The two of them had simply smiled knowingly, and done as she had asked.

It had not felt like foresight then. There had been no grand vision, no great prophecy of what was to come. She had dreamt of her brothers, and decided that her twins would have the training Eluréd and Elurin never received. Standing on the cliff edge, Elwing was almost certain that it had been some kind of foretelling. She had done all she could for them, and it might just be enough.

If the sons of Fëanor tried to abandon this set of twins in the woods, they’d find it awfully difficult.

Still, she didn’t want to run the risk. A darkness ran deep in them, had driven them to attack peaceful kingdoms and refugee camps. Elwing could not be certain that that darkness would not overwhelm the twins incredible capacity to be loved. But what could she do to save them? Her Silmaril had, once again, failed to save anyone but her, its protections gone the moment they were tested. No trade was possible, not with the people that had murdered her family and destroyed her home.

Her hand moved, as it so often did, to touch the Silmaril where it hung around her neck. This was her inheritance, her only inheritance, from Lúthien, and Melian before her. Perhaps it would have served Eärendil better, wherever he was, out on the waves, than it had ever served her. Had it even ever served her? What had it ever done that she could not have achieved herself? It was beautiful, yes, but while powerful things were often beautiful, beautiful things had no inherent power of their own.

Elwing had never been taught to use her powers in Doriath, but Uinen had assumed she had during their first lessons at the Mouth of the Sirion. Could she have done it, then? Hidden first herself, and then her people, from all but those who would not hurt them? She had been found by someone inexplicably willing to kill to keep her from harm. Even now, Astoril could not quite explain  _ why _ .

It was not beyond the realms of possibility. Ossë said that children were the best learners because they had not yet created limits. They were free as larks, free as song.

Elwing wanted to be free again.

She had been free once, a princess of Doriath, free to watch people with her ocean eyes, without fearing their judgement. Perhaps she had been free to escape to, free to protect herself and those around her. Once, there had been a time when she had known she was of Lúthien’s line, and not even Doriath could hold her. Could she be that girl again?

Elwing opened her eyes, and saw the world.

First there was the cold shock of water (or was it wind?). She could feel some change coming over her, and then she was racing across the water, bright as any star, and Eärendil was on the horizon. More than Eärendil, for behind him was a great stretch of land. Elwing could hear singing, louder and louder, until she reached the heart of this new world. She stood for a moment in the middle of it, trying to pick out the meanings she knew, before the picture changed to a riot of fire and water that stirred up the very sky. Finally, she saw her sons, grown to adulthood, standing on the docks at night. Each had an eight rayed star on his clothes, and above them was a star as bright as any Silmaril. Somewhere, there was the sound of a white bird calling.

So there was to be a war. A war, and a future for both of her sons. Whatever it was, her path seemed to be to the West, with Eärendil. If she would bring about this future, or if it was already happening, beyond her sight, Elwing could not tell. She went West, as bright as a star that was as bright as a Silmaril, and then her sons were safe.

There was the sound of people coming up the hill to her. The Havens were burning silently now, so it was most likely the Fëanorians coming for the Silmaril. Elwing turned towards them, not bothering to disguise her eyes or the power. Their two leaders, Maedhros and Maglor, took several steps back when she met their gazes, one after the other. Elwing took one step closer to the cliff edge.

Scanning the group, she caught sight of two little brown heads. They had intended to barter for the Silmarils with her sons. It would not work. She could save them better with the Silmaril than without. With the barest amount of caution, Elwing reached out with her mind to touch those of Elrond and Elros. There was not time to explain what she meant to do, but she gave them a message anyway.

_ I love you so very much. _

She took another step forward. Maglor moved sideways, obscuring the twins from her sight. He was protecting them, she realised, hiding what he must believe to be her death. She was right then. They would not hurt her sons, even if they wanted to.

Elwing touched the smooth, cold surface of the Silmaril like she had so many times before, but not for hope, nor courage. It was a strangely living thing, and Elwing felt it had some kind of understanding, so she willed it to understand one short message, all of its own.

_ I will squeeze hope and protection from you, for my sons, for all of Arda, even if it kills me. _

And with that quiet oath, she jumped.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed that! it was written primarily during two long train journeys between london and liverpool.  
> if you want to make a comment about the naming of elrond and elros, i already know, please don’t.  
> little soldiers is coming, in the most nebulous of ways. i’m not really in the best place to be writing maedhros rn.  
> please like and comment if you enjoyed!


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